World No. 2 Iga Swiatek accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, the International Tennis Integrity Agency announced Thursday.
Swiatek initially failed an out-of-competition drug test in August, a result that the five-time Grand Slam champion from Poland said was unintentional and was due to the contamination of the melatonin that she was taking for jet lag and sleeping.
“Once the source of the TMZ (trimetazidine) had been established, it became clear that this was a highly unusual instance of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated medicine,” ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse said. “However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medication in one country cannot of itself be sufficient to avoid any level of fault.
“Taking into account the nature of the medication, and all the circumstances, it does place that fault at the lowest end of the scale. This case is an important reminder for tennis players of the strict liability nature of the World Anti-Doping Code and the importance of players carefully considering the use of supplements and medications.”
Swiatek, 23, admitted the rule violation to the governing body on Wednesday and accepted her penalty.
“It was a blow for me. I was shocked and this whole situation made me very anxious,” the Poland native said Thursday in a video on social media. “At first I couldn’t understand how that was even possible and where it came from.
“It turns out testing revealed historically lowest levels of trimetazidine, a substance I’ve never heard about before. I don’t think I even knew it existed. I have never encountered it, nor did people around me. So I had a strong sense of injustice and these first few weeks were really chaotic.”
Swiatek already was provisionally suspended from Sept. 22 to Oct. 4 and sat out the Korea Open, the China Open and the Wuhan Open. She will now serve the remaining eight days of her suspension and be cleared to play as of Dec. 4.
Swiatek also was fined $158,944, her prize money earned during her semifinal run at the Cincinnati Open in August. That tournament came on the heels of her positive test.
Without playing on the tour’s Asia swing, Swiatek lost the chance to earn rankings points and eventually was overtaken as World No. 1 by Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
–Field Level Media
